NMSooner'80
2/17/2012, 02:30 PM
This was also discussed on KREF a couple of weeks ago, around Signing Day, and I forgot to make a post about it on various OU boards.
I may live in Albuquerque, and I also work for UNM, but there is NO WAY I could honestly say that Steve Alford (current UNM coach) belonged on a "greatest of all-time" list over Tisdale. That's absurd. The only thing that Alford has going for him over Wayman is a national title, and I think that Wayman could have gotten that had he stayed for his senior year. Heck, I don't even think Alford would say he was better as a player than Wayman was.
There was also such a bias against Billy Tubbs back then in the non-Oklahoma media that I think the "talking heads" failed to give Wayman his due. For some reason, Billy was labeled as a mediocre coach, mainly because he didn't play slow-it-down basketball. So I think people figured Billy "just rolled the ball out there" (and did no coaching), and thus Wayman was considered one-dimensional. If you saw him play, you knew better.
And of course, the papers in the Big 8 region took their cues from the Kansas City Star, which dumped on OU and labeled us an outlaw program. The OU teams of that era were just a little too flashy and successful for their staid, "a football school can't be good at hoops" attitudes in the KC area. The pro-Beaker (KU) leaning papers were the worst, from what I recall, and that semi-retired idiot named Chuck Woodling took the occasion of Wayman's death to dredge up a one-sided account of the '84 game in the Phog. Even some KU fans in the Lawrence area thought that was out of line.
The book that listed those players, which I believe came from Sports Illustrated, would have been on my Christmas wish list in a heartbeat. Since they screwed up that badly, I refused to consider getting one.
It's also a shame that Wayman's good career stats in the NBA were forgotten by those who should know better. He had a nice NBA career; just played on a bunch of lousy teams in the pros.
Any "best college players of all time" list that fails to include Wayman is a joke, pure and simple.
I may live in Albuquerque, and I also work for UNM, but there is NO WAY I could honestly say that Steve Alford (current UNM coach) belonged on a "greatest of all-time" list over Tisdale. That's absurd. The only thing that Alford has going for him over Wayman is a national title, and I think that Wayman could have gotten that had he stayed for his senior year. Heck, I don't even think Alford would say he was better as a player than Wayman was.
There was also such a bias against Billy Tubbs back then in the non-Oklahoma media that I think the "talking heads" failed to give Wayman his due. For some reason, Billy was labeled as a mediocre coach, mainly because he didn't play slow-it-down basketball. So I think people figured Billy "just rolled the ball out there" (and did no coaching), and thus Wayman was considered one-dimensional. If you saw him play, you knew better.
And of course, the papers in the Big 8 region took their cues from the Kansas City Star, which dumped on OU and labeled us an outlaw program. The OU teams of that era were just a little too flashy and successful for their staid, "a football school can't be good at hoops" attitudes in the KC area. The pro-Beaker (KU) leaning papers were the worst, from what I recall, and that semi-retired idiot named Chuck Woodling took the occasion of Wayman's death to dredge up a one-sided account of the '84 game in the Phog. Even some KU fans in the Lawrence area thought that was out of line.
The book that listed those players, which I believe came from Sports Illustrated, would have been on my Christmas wish list in a heartbeat. Since they screwed up that badly, I refused to consider getting one.
It's also a shame that Wayman's good career stats in the NBA were forgotten by those who should know better. He had a nice NBA career; just played on a bunch of lousy teams in the pros.
Any "best college players of all time" list that fails to include Wayman is a joke, pure and simple.